I’m off to Pittsburgh today but wanted to share some photos of Lisa Murch’s Wormhole at Projects Gallery. More photos at flickr and some great close-up shots at the gallery’s website.

Lisa Murch, view going down the basement stairs.

Like going through the birth canal backwards and into a watery world of calm, floaty beauty, the piece is elemental. There’s the ugh factor walking down the stairs and the aah factor once you’ve reached the bottom. The buggy/earthy/ environment smells a little and scares a little with its aggressive in-your-face evocation of what lies beneath the ground. But the pond environment is the reward, the sigh of relief after the stair challenge.

Lisa Murch, the "ugh" factor. Get up close with a bug.

Her materials range from Home Depot and AC Moore to recycling bin egg cartons, cardboard tubes — and egg shells. It took her the whole summer to stitch and glue together the 3-D landscape, I was told.

Lisa Murch, the watery pond you descend to after passing through the earthy and insecty stairway

This is neither an eco-piece, really, nor a Franklin Institute-esque installation (although it’s pretty close to both). Rather I’d like to think of it as a landscape of the mind by an artist who loves the land and nature — bugs included.

Lisa Murch, looking up the stairs from the basement. Light at the end of the tunnel.

Catch Wormhole this month, and, perhaps, next month too, says gallerist Helen Meyrick, who also told me she was off to Art Toronto 2009 from Oct. 22-26. This will be Projects Gallery’s first time at the Toronto art fair. Check out booth 430, if you’re up there.